A New Approach for Collaborative Knowledge Management: A Unified Conceptual Model for Collaborative Knowledg Management

With the advancement of new communication and virtualization technologies, various tools and models have been proposed for enabling effective management of the e-collaboration processes related to the creation, sharing, and presentation of collective knowledge. In the theoretical perspective, two significant aspects of collaborative knowledge management have been considered: (a) the internal processes of collaborative knowledge creation and sharing, which occur not only within the individual knowledge workers but also among them (collaboration); (b) the effective design of human-computer interfaces facilitating the internal processes, by providing functionalities for the knowledge workers to comprehend, conceptualize, and cooperate in knowledge creation and sharing through e-collaboration processes, including the effective presentation of the generated knowledge on the website. At the present time, although there exist several studies in the related areas, there is no unique conceptual model that can be applied toward assessing both the interface layer and the internal processes of collaborative knowledge creation and sharing in distributed ICT-based work contexts. This gap has been a great motivation for us to propose a conceptual model, namely the Unified Collaborative Knowledge Management (UCKM) model, which can be used to design and evaluate the overall knowledge management process, including the underlying sub-processes, the presentation of knowledge, and the human-computer interfaces

Designing Knowledge Management Systems for Teaching and Learning with Wiki Technology

A wiki is a group collaboration software tool based on Web server technology. This paper examines the use of a wiki to facilitate knowledge management in an academic setting. We present a case study about how a wiki was used to support collaborative activities in a knowledge management class at a graduate-level information systems and technology school. Our findings suggest that wikis can support collaborative knowledge creation and sharing in an academic environment. Success in attempts to provide such support may depend on: familiarity with wiki technology, careful planning for implementation and use, appropriate class size, and motivation of students to engage in discovery learning

Building motivation to participate in a quality improvement collaborative in NHS hospital trusts in Southeast England: a qualitative participatory evaluation.

OBJECTIVES: This study explores the barriers and facilitators that impact on the motivation of practitioners to participate in a quality improvement collaborative. DESIGN: A qualitative and formative evaluation using a participatory approach, the researcher-in-residence model which embraces the concept of 'coproducing' knowledge between researchers and practitioners using a range of research methods such as participant observation, interviews and documentary analysis. The design, creation and application of newly generated evidence are facilitated by the researcher through negotiation and compromise with team members. PARTICIPANTS: Senior and middle managers, doctors and nurses. SETTING: Two hospitals in Southeast England participating in a Patient Safety Improvement Collaborative and the facilitator (host) of the collaborative, based in Central London. RESULTS: The evaluation has revealed facilitators and barriers to motivation categorised under two main themes: (1) inherent motivation and (2) factors that influence motivation, interorganisational and intraorganisational features as well as external factors. Facilitators included collaborative 'champions,' individuals who drove the quality improvement agenda at a local level, raising awareness and inspiring colleagues. The collaborative itself acted as a facilitator, promoting shared learning as well as building motivation for participation. A key barrier was the lack of board engagement in the participating National Health Service organisations which may have affected motivation among front-line staff. CONCLUSIONS: Collaboratives maybe an important way of engaging practitioners in quality improvement initiatives. This study highlights that despite a challenging healthcare environment in the UK, there remains motivation among individuals to participate in quality improvement programmes as they recognise that improvement approaches may facilitate positive change in local clinical processes and systems. Collaboratives can harness this individual motivation to facilitate spread and adoption of improvement methodology and build engagement across their membership

Building motivation to participate in a quality improvement collaborative in NHS hospital trusts in Southeast England: a qualitative participatory evaluation.

OBJECTIVES: This study explores the barriers and facilitators that impact on the motivation of practitioners to participate in a quality improvement collaborative. DESIGN: A qualitative and formative evaluation using a participatory approach, the researcher-in-residence model which embraces the concept of 'coproducing' knowledge between researchers and practitioners using a range of research methods such as participant observation, interviews and documentary analysis. The design, creation and application of newly generated evidence are facilitated by the researcher through negotiation and compromise with team members. PARTICIPANTS: Senior and middle managers, doctors and nurses. SETTING: Two hospitals in Southeast England participating in a Patient Safety Improvement Collaborative and the facilitator (host) of the collaborative, based in Central London. RESULTS: The evaluation has revealed facilitators and barriers to motivation categorised under two main themes: (1) inherent motivation and (2) factors that influence motivation, interorganisational and intraorganisational features as well as external factors. Facilitators included collaborative 'champions,' individuals who drove the quality improvement agenda at a local level, raising awareness and inspiring colleagues. The collaborative itself acted as a facilitator, promoting shared learning as well as building motivation for participation. A key barrier was the lack of board engagement in the participating National Health Service organisations which may have affected motivation among front-line staff. CONCLUSIONS: Collaboratives maybe an important way of engaging practitioners in quality improvement initiatives. This study highlights that despite a challenging healthcare environment in the UK, there remains motivation among individuals to participate in quality improvement programmes as they recognise that improvement approaches may facilitate positive change in local clinical processes and systems. Collaboratives can harness this individual motivation to facilitate spread and adoption of improvement methodology and build engagement across their membership

Facilitating Bloom\u27s Level One through Active Learning and Collaboration

Bloom\u27s taxonomy provides a means of structuring learning activities according to levels of comprehension ranging from factual knowledge to the creation of new knowledge. There are problems with presenting factual knowledge in the traditional lecture mode: student motivation, time-to-present, and course priorities. However, in Bloom\u27s taxonomy, Level 1 (factual) knowledge is the basis for knowledge comprehension at higher levels. Therefore, it is essential that the fact base comprehension be attained so that higher levels of knowledge can be addressed. Active learning and collaborative approaches have been shown to be effective in promoting learning. How can active learning and collaboration be used to overcome the problems associated with promoting Level 1 comprehension? In our introductory Computer Information Science (CIS) course, we attempt to answer this question for the topic history of computing. We have combined a student research and collaborative assignment to acquire Level 1 comprehension with a culminating College Bowl activity to reach the goal of Level 2 comprehension. In this paper we discuss course organization, course goals, the College Bowl format of quizzing, contest results, and overall observation of the process

User Interface Design and Knowledge Integration in Electronic Groups: An Attention-Based View

The theory developed in this study seeks to construct an attention-based view of knowledge integration that underscores the importance of IS interface design. The assumption is that presenting ideas via user interface plays a key role in enabling and motivating knowledge integration in electronic brainstorming groups. Building on the attention-based view and motivation-ability framework, the current theory focuses on two major attributes of user interface: visibility and prioritization. While the first attribute is concerned with enabling knowledge integration via directing attention to a limited set of knowledge items, the second attribute intends to enhance the motivation for knowledge integration by exposing prioritized ideas to individuals’ attention. Knowledge integration at the group level is an essential process for establishing knowledge-based capabilities. To harness the collective value of the knowledge owned by individuals, organizations must facilitate knowledge integration. Lack of knowledge integration significantly reduces the value of knowledge sharing, which has long been the focus of organizational research. Unless attended to, processed, and integrated by recipients, the shared knowledge does not guarantee any benefit to the organization. However, pervasive use of online collaborative knowledge creation platforms (e.g., discussion boards, technical forums) has brought about an abundance of information that competes for attracting individuals’ attention. This information abundance made available electronically, calls for revisiting knowledge presentation via user interface to enhance knowledge integration. If not properly presented via user interface, information abundance distorts individuals’ attention and overshadows good ideas that are stored electronically among many others. This distortion will adversely influence individuals’ ability and motivation for knowledge integration.This theory developed in this study is distinct from previous research of computer-mediated knowledge integration in at least two ways: the frameworks explicitly separates knowledge integration and knowledge sharing and focuses exclusively on knowledge integration. Second, the attention-based view of knowledge integration is used to construct a motivation-ability framework for knowledge integration in the context of IS user interface

University-industry relations and entrepreneurship

Formal or informal relations between academia and industry have become more frequent and visible. Asides from a quite conspicuous political motivation that has, in more recent times, consistently pushed towards more close relations between higher education institutions or public research organisations and enterprises, there are a number of several other reasons, most notably those related to knowledge creation and exploitation, that have contributed to draw the attention on collaborative or cooperative agreements between members of academe and industry. This paper attempts to systematize and synthesize the now vast literature on the subject. It focuses on the relationships between forms or modes of academia and industry cooperative channels and their implications on knowledge production and exploitation. It explores their contribution to the concept of entrepreneurship, contextualising the mechanism of creation of spin-off firms from university research, and other subtle or more hidden forms of entrepreneurial behaviour. It presents relevant statistics on the phenomena, describing the main empirical findings and their most important contributions, and highlighting the main arguments that underpin the theoretical debates.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Incentive Mechanisms and Quality Assurance for Peer Production

We investigate quality assurance and motivation in peer-production settings. We focus on the collaborative creation of structured knowledge. We study, how rating-based incentive mechanisms can increase the quality of the knowledge created. Further, we study how to increase the classification accuracy, in particular the presence of low-competence raters. Finally, we analyze how authors of a scientific conference rate peer reviews, and how authors\u27 ratings can increase the quality of the reviews

Metadata enrichment for digital heritage: users as co-creators

This paper espouses the concept of metadata enrichment through an expert and user-focused approach to metadata creation and management. To this end, it is argued the Web 2.0 paradigm enables users to be proactive metadata creators. As Shirky (2008, p.47) argues Web 2.0’s social tools enable “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”. Lagoze (2010, p. 37) advises, “the participatory nature of Web 2.0 should not be dismissed as just a popular phenomenon [or fad]”. Carletti (2016) proposes a participatory digital cultural heritage approach where Web 2.0 approaches such as crowdsourcing can be sued to enrich digital cultural objects. It is argued that “heritage crowdsourcing, community-centred projects or other forms of public participation”. On the other hand, the new collaborative approaches of Web 2.0 neither negate nor replace contemporary standards-based metadata approaches. Hence, this paper proposes a mixed metadata approach where user created metadata augments expert-created metadata and vice versa. The metadata creation process no longer remains to be the sole prerogative of the metadata expert. The Web 2.0 collaborative environment would now allow users to participate in both adding and re-using metadata. The case of expert-created (standards-based, top-down) and user-generated metadata (socially-constructed, bottom-up) approach to metadata are complementary rather than mutually-exclusive. The two approaches are often mistakenly considered as dichotomies, albeit incorrectly (Gruber, 2007; Wright, 2007) . This paper espouses the importance of enriching digital information objects with descriptions pertaining the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of description, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. This paper presents the importance of the paradigm of metadata enriching and metadata filtering for the cultural heritage domain. Metadata enriching states that a priori metadata that is instantiated and granularly structured by metadata experts is continually enriched through socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, whereby users are pro-actively engaged in co-creating metadata. The principle also states that metadata that is enriched is also contextually and semantically linked and openly accessible. In addition, metadata filtering states that metadata resulting from implementing the principle of enriching should be displayed for users in line with their needs and convenience. In both enriching and filtering, users should be considered as prosumers, resulting in what is called collective metadata intelligence

The use of Wikis in Education - a review of the literature

This paper reviews the literature surrounding the use of Web 2.0 in education. It examines various perspectives of what Web 2.0 means, and how Web 2.0 can support a constructivist pedagogy. Case studies involving Wikis are examined and the problems experienced are considered from both a technological and a group-working perspective. The paper concludes that although Wikis have the potential to support social-constructivism the differences between artificially constructed learning groups (formal learning) and self-forming and emergent social groups (informal learning) result in a requirement for greater attention to the theories on group working when creating group tasks using Wikis for learning purposes. Wikis are a tool and do not, by themselves, result in satisfactory collaborationPeer reviewe